That's according to a report in The New York Times, which notes most people would rather live out their lives in their own homes.
This is just one of the reasons why Northampton County Executive John Stoffa, himself a former Human Services Director in two counties, advocated the sale of Gracedale.
Unfortunately, his attempt to inform the public in numerous town halls was drowned out by fear-mongering from a group more worried about their jobs than the elders they are supposed to serve.
Updated Sunday, 8 AM: The Archdiocese of New York plans to open seven PACE (Program of All-inclusive Care for the Elderly) centers in the South Bronx. It is selling St. Teresa's, a 98-bed facility that would cost the Diocese $25 million to renovate. A PACE center costs $6 million, and can help 250 seniors stay out of nursing homes.
39 comments:
Keep beating the drum
Applaud with one hand
I saw a study that indicates nursing homes will begin to overflow within the next decade
due to the fat ass boomers not being able to be cared for in a home setting......
too many complications
SO I SHOULD TAKE THE ny TIMES STUDY AS THE GOSPEL?
Any other time you right wingnuts are marginalizing the Times
NorCo is and will be sitting on a gold mine....
you really annoy me
YOU LOST ....GET OVER IT
just imagine what $60,,ooo,ooo dollars would do in the hands of John Mehler and the Area Agency on Aging. That`s where the money should be going.
Does no one recall that home care is rediscovered every time nursing homes come under federal and state budgetary pressures?
One needs to ask why home care never broadly supplanted skilled nursing (nursing home) care. The answer is that skilled nursing home in an institutional setting cannot be replaced with skilled nursing home in the absence of 24/7 registered nurses, LPNs and aides.
The reason that skilled nursing care is expensive is that it is labor intensive. The bricks and mortar do not account for the greater proportion of the cost. Nursing labor and social workers are necessary to feed, bath, toilet, bed and provide activities for patients who lack the ability to perform their own daily living needs.
An alternative is for a family member to perform those functions at home. Such family members first require training and, secondly, must give over their lives unequivocally. Most skilled nursing patients are not physically or mentally capable of daily transportation between home and a day care facility. For those who are, a person trained and qualified in skilled nursing services must be in the home at all other times.
In the home, the ratio of patient to skilled nursing provider is one-to-one. In an institutional setting, the ratio is much greater, creating efficiencies and cost savings.
Home care as an alternative to institutional skilled nursing care is an old idea whose idea never came. It is a political gimmick.
Where have we heard this song before? Right, when the psychiatric hospitals, some 30, 40 years ago, were shut down in favor of proposedl group homes and outpatient clinics. These were going to be heaven!
The thing is, as egregious as some of those hospitals had become, what happened to their ex-patients out on the street was worse.
Dementia is common. As is lack of mobility. If a patient requires expensive mechanical lifts and/or the help of several aides to transfer out of bed, it's hard to see how hospital closures will improve matters.
Nursing homes could benefit from larger budgets rather than smaller ones. Creating jobs - rather than eliminating them - would be another sort of benefit to us all.
Your brilliant argument must be why Allentown State Hospital is now closed and all but 8 people were transferred into group homes. Your last sentence gives you away. You want nursing homes to create jobs, even if it is not what an older person wants or needs.
Those aren't my words
I cut and pasted from the comments on the link you provided.
Go read them.
You are not happy unless you can say something negetive.
It must suck walking around in your skin.
Those are MY WORDS
Any thought of keeping nursing homes open to maintain government jobs is simply evil. Patient care should be the only objective; not government jobs.
unfortunately, we have reached the point in the development of our culture where government is expected to decide everything about our life, birth control to where we work to old age care. Individuals can avoid personal responsibilty for themselves and their family members. The rich should take care of it uner the benevolent eye of government experts.
"Nursing homes could benefit from larger budgets rather than smaller ones. Creating jobs - rather than eliminating them - would be another sort of benefit to us all."
Those words appear nowhere in the NYT story. I just went back and saw that someone posted it as a comment, which you basically plagiarized and posted here. That is why you want to keep Gracedale It has NOTHING to do with the resident, and everyting to do with public sector unions.
The article cited Catholic Churches as a model of this. In a related story the Catholic Diocease
in Philadelphia is closing and selling 4 of its schools. In another related story Monsignor William Lynn accuses Cardinal Anthony Bivilacqua of ordering the shredding of the Predetor Preists lists.
Maybe these stories are related by necessity. The church needs to get capital to pay off the literally 100's of millions of dollars awarded in the alter boy child molestation cases. Maybe they are being proactive anticipating the hundreds of millions of dollars in additional settlements that are yet to come.
Maybe here in NorCo our own version of an molestation award settlement percipitated the drive to sell Gracedale, only it was called SWAPTION.
Oh, I see. Nursing homes are being sold bc the Catholic Church has to pay child molestation settlements. In NC, it is the swaption. Do you realize how kooky you sound?
The paramount consideration should be what is best for the person who is impacted most. People like you think it is the public sector union member, who might have to give up a few benefits. People like Stoffa (and me) think it's the person who actually is forced to live there.
Me. Me. Me. Me. Me.
Sincerely,
Gracedale Union Goldbrick
Another right wingnut argument. This comes every so often as does the wind. problem is there are not enough people in home health care to help the people now. Problem, people in home health care are overworked underpaid.
The state hospital was closed to save money not to help people. If you knew anything about mental health other than being a sick man you would realize this fact.
The deinstitutionalization of the state in the 70's help create a permanent class of mentally ill homeless you boneheads.
More nonsense to praise John Stoffa And his bonehead idea to trade Gracedale for his drug addict lounge. the people didn't buy your bullshit them they don't buy it now.
People much more knowledgeable than you have refuted and disproved all your crap. Ask both of Stoffa;'s former employers what they though of him as a human services director. he loved crappy jokes and didn't do a damn thing to help people.
Keep beating the dump Gracedale drum, only you Angle, Stoffa, Panto and the teabbagers hear it.
Yeah, looks like the New York Times is a right wing organization now, too. Stoffa probably bought them off.
What a maroon.
When one has taken too many tea bags to the face, he begins to regard the NYT as right wing. Switch positions. Floss your tooth. Get some air. Turn off Rachel Maddow. Stop staring at the little boys in the school yard across the street.
I would like to shit gold bricks but that ain't going to happen. Stop feeding the fire O'Hare. You can put Gracedale on the ballot again and it would pass again. Stoffa wanted to sell it to raise some quick cash. He doesn't give a rats ass about the elderly and never has.
As to the insults of the teabaggers, what else does one expect from zealots. Nnext time think before you pick a moniker, monkey boys.
Are you the only one left sans Stoffa and the failed CE candidate Panto that are fighting the fight of the stupid?
I certainly hope Panto sees the light BEFORE he decides to run.
Come up for Air Ohare
The fact of the matter is everyone wants to stay at home as long as possible.We tried to keep our grandmother at home as long as we could,but we had to work and werent trained to all her full medical needs. Thank god for gracedale, we couldnt afford the private homes and most other people cant either. Gracedale will long outlive you Bernie and one day you may be thankfull for gracedale, my grandmother was and she enjoys every minute there...
Why is it that those who love and practice teabagging so dislike teabaggers?
Ponderously,
Anderson Cooper Vanderbilt
PS: Gracedale was done in by referendum. It's days as a union slop trough are legally numbered. Take you 99 weeks and bark at the moon.
"Another right wingnut argument."
I see. Putting a resident's est interests ahead of those of public sector unions is a "right wingnut" argument. I know where the wingnuts are conglomerated.
PACE programs work great in urban areas. Places like Bethlehem, Easton and maybe Bangor would do OK with this model, but selling Gracedale and moving to PACE programs would limit services to those in rural areas of the county. Not something Angle would agree with for the people of Area 4 that he loves so much.
"Oh, I see. Nursing homes are being sold bc the Catholic Church has to pay child molestation settlements. In NC, it is the swaption. Do you realize how kooky you sound?"
I got the "kooky" idea of the selling of Gracedale to pay off swaption from your multiple comments stating that the 50 million dollars we get from selling Gracedale will give us the money needed to pay off the swaption debt. Hey, you said it, look back at last years entries. At every oportunity you had, it was one of your reasons to sell.
Another thing a non partisian reader would discover re-reading your comments is, that you in your protracted attempt to sway the voter to sell, you moved the goal line many times to make your points.
It reminded me of the reasons we invaded Iraq and how they kept morphing.
Just sayin'
'tsk 'tsk.
Actually in Bernies defense the retarget kept moving because the swaption kept growing, he was only chasing wall street and interest rates and never changes his "sell gracedale, pay debt, help with in home care" Mantra.
This is such a slanted bullshit argument against nursing homes it is laughable. Everyone knows O'Hare is carrying water for Stoffa. They keep banging the drum for destroying the home county voters overwhelmingly voted to keep.
This issue has already destroyed Panto's chances at county executive and will cause a couple republicans to lose in the next county election.
Keep shoveling the shit O'Hare, people much more knowledgable than you kmow the truth of the matter.
"I got the "kooky" idea of the selling of Gracedale to pay off swaption from your multiple comments stating that the 50 million dollars we get from selling Gracedale will give us the money needed to pay off the swaption debt"
First, we were never getting $50 MM.
Second, we have the money to pay off the swaption. I NEVER stated we need to sell Gracedale so we can pay the swaption. That is the argument that has been made by the Fake Rev and people like you.
Third, my motivation all along has been the best possible care for the residents, and that would be assured by Gracedale's sale.
Fourth, the people voted to keep it as a result of a campaign of smears and lies. But I respect the will of the voters, and it is our obligation to try to make it work.
Gracedale offers below average care at above average prices. There's no hope that this improves. There's just over four years to keep a shell of it open to comply with a resolution passed without any discussion of its costs. In the interim, many parts of the operation can be privatized and downsized to limit the union's damage to the county's finances. Eventually, Gracedale will finally, officially close and residents will no longer have to fear being sentenced to its substandard care and abusive personnel. You assholes better get another referendum started. The last one sealed your stupid fate. Must have been written by a complete idiot.
Yes, Gracedale was "saved" by the referendum vote. The only thing that was saved, were union jobs. The "Save Gracedale" crowd convinced a gullible public that the institution would close if sold.
Now we have to pay the piper for 5 years until the inevitable happens. A sale. Which most likely will be greeted as an amazing savior.
The last comment was from Bill Coker
Heh heh. Bill, because you identify yourself, you are attacked. But you have the courage to stand up for your beliefs. I'm proud to count you among my friends.
Fact of the matter Bernie is that Northampton County has 200 too many nursing home beds. This has occurred despite the county growing by 40,000 people in the last 10 years. The so called experts were wrong and continue to be so. Further no one wants to die in a nursing home...even Gracedale. Why does a government compete for patients with the private sector ? Is this the role of government? i think not. Gracedale continues to struggle and has not increased it`s census despite a new management firm. Stofa /Angle were right and history will prove them so. Bufoons like Baron will hide behind lies and distortions as only he can do.The county contribution will continue to rise and cause big tax increases , especially on elderly home owners. Come to think of it putting the elderly out of their homes might help the census... and keep those sweet sweet union jobs intact.
Bernie,
Thanks for your kind words.
You are one the few guide post as to what is really happening. Many are blind and continue to be.
Thanks again.
With the intentional sabotage of Gracedale by Stoffa, of course it has problems. In the upcoming recall, evidence from employees will be presented to the people. John Stoffa will become the first county executive removed from office via recall for gross incompetence and malfeasance.
Stoffa has O'Hare continuing to pitch his bullshit but it won't hurt Gracedale, actually it will help. Stoffa will be thrown out of office a year early and the honest healing process can begin.
Seniors and the sick can once again feel secure, as O'Hare and Stoffa will be moved out of government and go back to being the inconsequential incompetent idiots they have shown themselves to be. Ross Marcus will immediately be released form his "job". A knowledgeable and responsible professional will replace him.
Maybe you guys can organize the new teabagger party or something.
Yeah, Stoffa must be pretty powerful. He now has the "teabagger" New York Times doing his bidding and the Catholic Church is under his thumb.
Cuckoo!
"Home health aides have long had the distinction of being among the lowest paid workers in the United States, but now it's revealed they also get the least amount of sleep.
Concern over finances and an overall stressful job may be keeping home health aides up at night; but lawyers also made the list of sleep-deprived occupations."
When one is a under-achiever in their own life, low pay, few possessions, no chance to succeed. That person lives by the philosophy "misery loves company". The envy is worn on the sleeves and is evident when one engages in any form of communication.
A sense of accomplishment and superiority is felt when someone is less well off then them. Not a huge feat given their socio-economical position. Hey, whatever floats your boat.
Anon 12:30 sums up the credo of the treabaggers,"screw the next guy is it ain't me".
That is why Gracedale Is and will remain a county asset and you fellows are ignored by people who understand life and government.
That makes a lot of sense. I would much rather spend the rest of my life in familiar surroundings than in a nursing home
Not everyone will be able to stay in their homes. this is crap being spun to screw old people and the millions of boomers who will be screwed by corrupt politicians like John Stoffa.
Nursing homes kent
Home care as an alternative to institutional skilled nursing care is an old concept whose concept never came. It is a governmental trick.
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